Between Two Lives
by Trane7
Summary: Between two lives, so different in volume and purity. Between two lives, so different in strength and weaknesses. Between two lives, each a victim and each a monster. Between two lives, each suffering and each inflicting suffering. Where do these two stand? Two-shot, possible One-shot series. You may adopt or take inspiration from my work.
1. Chapter 1

Seagulls flew overhead the pier of Japan, their brief squawks filling the air noisily as they drew lazy circles around the sky. The water in Japan's ports were pristine, yet as Alex stood there looking at it with a scowl, it looked no less inviting as it did in Manhattan.

He shifted, ignoring the whispers of nearby locals who starred in odd fascination at the 'rough' foreigner. Alex had to get used to it, in Manhattan no one wanted to know who he was just that he was something to _avoid_, here they tend to just stare at him awkwardly. It wasn't much of a stretch but it was a stretch.

He sniffed, not really needing to breath as an 'undead' being but nonetheless performed the motion if it at least gave off the feel he was alive. His scowl deepened, it didn't do jack shit.

Alex twisted on the balls of his feet, looks of fear and disgust appearing on the formerly curious faces as they registered his smooth, predator-like, gait. Mercer smirked inwardly; happy to find them scurrying away, but kept hid face neutral outwardly- not an emotion could be discerned.

In his pocket- or rather inside his body as his clothes were a part of him- were the names of several high profile Gentek and Blackwatch operatives working in Japan, helping out their counterparts in the CCG. Whatever type of infection they were dealing with- Alex caught slivers of information making mention of 'Ghouls'- Blackwatch was pressed for some political fanfare to help the CCG, a task they didn't like as Blackwatch gave them the derogatory name 'Appetizers' for some reason. Alex didn't know why they were taking, he ate them in a fairly regular basis too.

His thoughts drifted eastward, away from Japan as he zeroed in on his Web of Intrigue with a particular node. Access codes, names and whatever he needed in order to infiltrate the CCG headquarters. What's this? They have a scanner set to monitor the Rc factor of a person? That wouldn't be a problem for Alex but it interested him.

Then he paused, his mind stalling as something made his body react. He raised an eyebrow, tossed a look down a river bank and spotted the cause of the disturbance. Or maybe not?

A child, perhaps no older than eight, sat contemplatively on the side of a river bank- Alex seemed to have gone further inland than he had expected- reading a book. He had a mop of hair that reminded Alex of a lemon and his eyes scanned the page of the book slowly, deliberately, as though he wanted to enjoy the sensation of the book between his fingers. But he remained completely oblivious to the man that flitted around the banks outcropping, the low rasps of hungry breaths leeching the air.

Alex frowned, the person moved erratically as though he wasn't there with the mere purpose to simply terrorise a child and with how his tongue lolled out and the black with red pupil eye, Alex deduced this was what had brought Blackwatch so far out of the US. He frowned, looking around himself before nodding when he realised no one was around.

Like a hunter Alex immediately fell into a crouch and began to creep up behind the man-thing. It had been stupid, no matter how clear an attack in open day was just not advisable and the thing lacked the subtlety of a seasoned and veteran hunter like Alex. Even as the walking pathogen prepared to lunge at the thing the difference were clear, Alex was careful and deliberate as his place in the food chain stood at the very highest- he was the perfect apex predator, not lacking in strength, stealth or adaptability. This one seemed eager, young and fresh as though it had gone days without food and threw caution to the wind. Alex tsked, he would pay for that.

Dana would surely kill him if he let such an obvious danger to a kid roam free to do as it pleases.

Alex lunged forward and grappled his neck, the thing tried to yelp but Alex already applied enough force to silence him as well as some biomass to cover its mouth. It screamed muffled shouts before its hands clawed at Mercers wrist, tugging with considerable force to try and rip his grip free. Mercer seemed only slightly impressed at his strength but only slightly. The thing wouldn't provide the slightest challenge to Alex even if it wanted to.

With a 'small' amount of force Mercer had crushed its windpipe, dug his feeding tentacles inside and devoured the thing whole. Then he grimaced as the influx of memories moved inwards and he cursed inwardly. "Well looks like I'll have to get rid of all this Rc." He muttered and as he did his body obeyed his commands and began to carefully regulate the Rc now within his system. "Kinkaku huh? I'll have to test that out later, if I need it anyways." Mercer shrugged and walked towards the boy.

Dana would still kill him if he left a kid on a river bank alone. He snorted, Dana would kill him for anything yet if he made a complaint about her going out on a date then _he_ was being overbearing.

In his moment of thought he had completely forgot about the kid, who was now staring at this scary foreigner in fear. "Um, don'na goyōdeshou ka?" He said. Alex blinked, mentally slapped himself and pulled out whatever knowledge of japanese he had, which was considerable.

'Can you help me, eh?' Mercer thought wryly before nodding and gesturing his head back towards the city. "It's not safe here kid," Alex grimaced at his slight accent as he was not used to the word stresses, "Go home, wheres your mother?" Alex looked down at the kid and noticed how he looked slightly downcast at the word mother.

"I'm sorry, I'll go home now." He said but Mercer placed a hand atop his head, making sure he stayed put just in case more of those things that were prowling around was nearby. "I asked where your parents are kid?"

The boy made a soft tightening of his face before looking down at Mercers feet, "She's dead and so is my father, I'm alone. Please, I can travel home by myself." Alex screwed his face together, well that was just great! Alex didn't feel much sympathy- he woke up in a morgue- but he sure as hell wasn't letting an upset kid wander off on his own.

"Wait, I'll walk you to at least a crowded area before letting you go." At least there someone had to try before they could kidnap him, which was something that could be easily avoided as sunset had yet come. The boy seemed hesitant- Alex was a really scary looking guy- before nodding his head.

"Um..ok." He said after a pause. He went to pick up his bag and Mercer planned number in his heads. Two hours was as far as he could go on this detour before he had to go back to his hunt.

"Come on" Alex ordered. The kid walked by Mercers side and quietly shuffled by his side.

"Who are you?" The kid asked.

"You don't need to know." Alex said coldly but not with bad intentions. As far as Mercer was concerned the kid was an avid reader and avid readers usually have a better chance of knowing who he is than others.

"I'm Kaneki Ken." He said in greeting with a shy smile, "You're a nice person." He said while touching his chin. Alex didn't need to be a genius to see he was lying.

"Right," Alex grunted, "Are you living alone?" Mercer asked.

"No, I'm with my Auntie, she's a nice person." Another lie. This kid was either too nice, naive or didn't even know his own tick.

"Your aunt must really love your sister if she's willing to let you in her home?" Alex's insides stirred as he sniffed out the presence of several more of those things- and with every fibre of his being he began secreting pheromones into the air, silencing all others as he made his presence clear. 'I'm the alpha' Alex snarled but Kaneki was relatively unaware of his -unknown- saviors thoughts.

"My mother helped my aunt a lot, she helped pay for my aunts bills when her husband was spending too much and always lent her money. My mother was amazing," This time Kaneki's hand lingered on his chin, not falling down even as he turned out of the way of people before it came down with the next set of words, "I wanna be just like her someday!" He said.

Alex looked down at the kid and he felt the edges of his lips quirk. The kid was telling a half-truth now but that was okay, he was still growing. "Alright." Mercer smiled. They were in the middle of a shopping district now, scores of people walking by.

Mercer thought inside him for a moment, before he thought, why the hell not? He tapped the kids shoulder and in an instant DNA was exchanged. A draft of Mercers Evolve strain filtered into the boys bloodstream faster than even light could catch and Alex let go with a small smile. Perhaps the boy would be a Prototype, become a male carrier or an Evolved. One thing was for sure, _perhaps_, the little boy could do the good he wished. That naivety would die, so would a filament of his kindness- perhaps he would become another Mercer- but nonetheless he would be to Japan as Mercer was to Manhattan.

"Alright kid, go on." Mercer pat the kid on the back and watched as he took a few steps away before turning back with a smile.

"I hope we see each other again." Kaneki said, he was still quiet and reserved but now Alex knew, that was a full-truth.

"I'm sure we will." Kaneki gave a small, nice, smile before turning and disappearing into the crowd. Alex grinned, but let his eyes fall down as he balanced the thoughts in his mind. Not looking back at the dormant Blacklight carrier.

'What's the harm,' Alex finally thought, 'We're family now, I'll be close by.' Then he grimaced inside.

Dana was _sure_ to kill him now.


	2. Chapter 2

Kaneki felt his insides churn as Rezi drove her tentacles through his body. Again and again and again and again _and again._ He gasped as blood spilled out of him in tidal waves, the pain flaring all around his body with the force of a tsunami. The tentacles dislodged themselves from his body and he fell to the ground with a dull thud.

His breaths became labored and his eyesight blurred into tunnel vision, the edges curling in on themselves to place the object of his pain at the centre of his peripheral. _Rize_. She stood there, the whites of her eyes as black as an abyss and the pupil so red one might mistake it as blood. She grinned at him and he wished he was already dead.

"You're still not dead? Good." She cooed, the sound sickened Kaneki's stomach. He tried to backpedal away but the jagged hole in his stomach refused to let up and he lost all motor control to his lower body. He tried to breath again, but found that it was getting more and more difficult.

"Kaneki-kun!" Rize surged forward, looking down at him much like how a victorious predator would look at it's food. He choked back a sob as another tentacle pierced his right shoulder, ripping bone and flesh apart before it twisted like a drill.

Kaneki lost the strength to even scream, holding his breath as he wished to live. He didn't want to die, he didn't want to his last breaths be spent squirming away like an insect. Something inside him crumpled, as though it couldn't handle living anymore, before it died.

Then Rize sent one last final tentacle into his heart and now the reaper finally embraced Kaneki Ken's thread of life. His eyeballs rolled to the back of his head, his soul was about to leave the world, the scissors poised to cut his lifeline.

_Then_, his heart beeped again. Something inside of him, something stronger than the other piece that died, woke up. It breathed, it hunted and it consumed every part of him that was _weak_. In Kaneki's last breath before his eyes closed, he awoke again to the agonizing pain of rebirth.

"Oh my! You're still alive!" Rize gasped in joy but Kaneki didn't hear her. His mind was left a mess at his own screams of pain. His voice distorting within as everything he was breathed again, but it was not air that surged into his body, _it was the voices of the Many._ They spoke to him, they comforted him, they pained him and terrorised him. They were all _dead_, colder than even a hundred year old corpse. They were _insane_, they were _broken. _His body broke, his mind drowned in the sea of voices before finally, _he_ spoke.

'_Let the Hive, set you free_' Then the voices ended. And the last thing Kaneki heard was the sound of metal tumbling done, a soft wheeze that he could not discern and voices spearing through the haze of post death.

'_Can you do it Doctor?_' A gruff male voice said, Kaneki was only barely able to realise he was speaking english.

'_Perhaps, his heart was partially destroyed and I can only hope that the regeneration will be able to kick in before he dies.' _Something inside Kaneki stirred and he felt the sensation of two arms wrap around his chest, one human with five fingers the other something else with four pieces of jagged metal encasing him.

'_Just do as you need to Dr, Blackwatch is paying for it._' Kaneki felt his body shift and change, the human hand suddenly wrapped around his neck while the other encircled his abdomen and pressed himself close to the person behind him.

Then he felt something going inside his body, organs exchanged, blood replaced, all the while the jagged metal drew circles in his chest.

'_Decide Kaneki,_' A voice said, the same one that had silenced the others, '_Between two lives which path will you take. Neither is forgiving, neither is human. Your choice, however, will make it all the more simpler._'

Then the world blanked out into darkness, his mind swimming in thoughts not his own. He opened his eyes, saw the inky blackness of his mind and watched dazed as a form manifested in front of him.

It was rippled in shadows, its body writhing in flames before it died and receded to reveal his face. It was normal, neither different or new, but in a blink it changed.

His eye turned black, a red pupil so crimson and dyed in his own blood that it pierced through the darkness. Then the other side, the one with his normal eye, distorted into being. Tendrils shifted and cut through the skin, rippling his face and twisting it. Before long that side of his face was replaced with a mesh of flesh and metal, his one normal eye now shining in golden light glinting as a predators tool.

Kaneki breathed, found that the air tasted like nothing, and closed his eyes for another slumber. Another slumber deep in himself, another slumber that would bring about a new body, new mind, and in it the Kaneki Ken that was human suddenly disappeared.

ANNOUNCEMENT

**So I added this little bit in so I wasn't all evil and left it off there. But I'm still debating on whether or not to turn this into a full fic. I might just leave this as simply a two-shot, with a few other One-shots of Kaneki as a Ghoul/Evolve and Blackwatch working with the CCG in eliminating Aogiri tree or other Ghouls. The story idea tho is up for adoption or if anyone wants, to take inspiration from. I have no qualms about it. **


	3. Chapter 3

**To Guest: I just did it cuz I thought it was cool, if Alex was out character then I apologise, I'm not good at writing his type of characters. They're no-zones for me. Btw, what did you mean by gross? Did I make Alex sound like a pedophile? Because then I extremely apologise. **

**Ghoul Kaneki vs Evolve Kaneki One-Shot**

Kaneki felt his breath go ragged, he couldn't begin to understand anything that was going on. His mind was at a lost. Hide was in front of him, close to the death and Nishio stood above Hide's fallen body like a victorious soldier, his abyss black eyes- eyes so similar to Rize's- stared unblinkingly at him.

He gasped, his mind reeling at the thought of losing Hide. He cried out in anguish, pain, sorrow before a burning desire filled his heart. He more felt than realised that his eye had turned the same as the Ghoul before him- lit a flame in anger as he surged forward. Below his back, four deep crimson red tentacle forced themselves out and formed around him in a cocoon.

Nishio yelled out in anticipation, body coiled and prepared for a fight. Then Kaneki was bolting down, eyes stretched wide open in his state of unbeing. The tentacles uncoiled around him as it blocked Nishio's strike and Kaneki rolled with the blow before latching onto the tail. Then another urge filled his mind, this one stronger- more beastial- and his other eye glowed in bright golden light. It bathed him before he sprinted off atop Nishio's kagune, sliding against the mass of hardened Rc cells before he plunged his right arm through the senior Ghouls gut.

Then his kagune reeled itself in and cut straight through Nishio's gut. Then another, and another, before all four were plunged into the Ghoul and forcing him to the ceiling with continuous rapid-fire shots.

Nishio gasped, howled in pain, and before long he was screaming, "I'm gonna die! I'm gonna fucking die you bastard!" Before he was sent spiralling into a thick metal fence. He gasped, his eyes still darkened in abyss. Before finally he fainted.

Kaneki stood still for a moment, enjoying it. Enjoying the freedom that he was suddenly bestowed. Before he gagged and fell to the floor, his mind reeling away as he tried to comprehend the pain that suddenly flared up all around him.

Hide was still lying motionless on the floor, blood flowing down his neck. A voice, Rize's voice flitted into his ears. "Doesn't he look delicious, Kaneki-kun?" She cooed into his ears. Kaneki balanced away, his mind breaking down as he tried to fight the impulses raging throughout his body- all the while the veins around his eyes grew, the Ghoul eye he hated now burning with the desire to feed.

"Hide is a friend!" He screeched as he sunk to his knees, "Hi-hide doesn't-couldn't. I-I can't!" Kaneki sunk to his knees just as Rize brought her hands up and cupped them around Kaneki's chin.

"Shh," she whispered, resting her forehead against his cheek, "Hide is a friend. He's suffering right now, so let's just ease his pain." Kaneki dropped to all fours, his teeth flared, his eyesight blurred, then he was crawling towards his friends body.

"Hide is a friend." He gasped, but the air tasted stale- no, it felt like air didn't enter at all. "I can't hurt Hide!" Tears streamed down his eyes and his body shuddered as he opened his mouth wide. "And because Hide is a friend, I'll devour him!" He lurched his body down and was about to chew down on Hide.

Then, just then, so simple and slow. Hide stopped, his black as abyss eye was wide-open before it narrowed in pain. He backpedaled, his hands reaching to the right side of his face as tendrils suddenly sprouted out. "What's going on!" Rize screeched but Kaneki couldn't begin to try and hear her. The tendrils and shifted, Kaneki briefly wondered what they were before he turned to a nearby window and realised with a start that his one normal human eye was shining golden- the pupil slit as the tentacles slithered across his face.

_Consume._ A deep rumbling voice screeched, _No Ghoul. Consume. No Ghoul. Consume. No Ghoul. Consume! _It chanted. Kaneki gripped his ears, his legs suddenly started to spasm and he felt them twist and buckle. The limb shuddered- then snapped. Kaneki yelled into the air, the sound itself nearly ripping his voice box to shreds as the body part continued to twist.

Then his right arm cracked, twisting and cutting itself as jagged pieces of metal formed. He gasped, he breathed, but still air refused to go in. Then Rize screamed but her voice was no longer hers, it was more guttural, "This is our body!" It screeched.

Then Kaneki couldn't hold it in anymore. He arched his back and with one final glance at his reflection Kaneki saw a horrifying sight. His right side was twisted and black, the muscles torn and whatever skin peeled off, and his right arm and leg had been replaced with long jagged serrated blades. His normal left side balked and the Ghoul eye was now webbed with red lines. Kaneki screamed.

He fought for control but this wasn't his body anymore. They clashed, whatever blow they exchanged inside him caused pain to flare all around him. His kagune lashed out in all directions, their control no longer affordable as they smashed everything in sight. His hunger increased tenfold, but now it wasn't for Hide any longer, _it was for himself._

Kaneki bit down on his arm, the side that was normal and the flesh suddenly reacted. Jagged metal tore flesh apart as Kaneki's ribcage was ripped open. He howled again but it was cut off as his kagune reached back down and slammed into his gut.

It continued like that, a continuous cycle of self-harm as these two powers fought for dominance. Then a presence entered, and that was when Kaneki lost it. "**I n**e_**e**__d_ **t**_**o **_f**e**_e_**d" **Kaneki raced forward, and the Ghoul-side of him lashed out with a tentacle prepared to bisect whoever stood in his way.

It dodged but it was not due to its own merit. The jagged metal reached over and cut the kagune in half, and before Kaneki realised it a long jagged spike was stabbed into his left eye. "G**a**h**hh**_hh_**h**h_h_hh!" He cried as jagged piece stayed lodged.

_This body is weak!_, the voice roared before Kaneki felt the spike ripped sideways, drawing a jagged line between his eyes as he crumpled to the ground. The kagunes shuddered, before they came down and nailed Kaneki to the ground.

The tendrils slithered across Kanekis face, but then flesh met flesh as they fought for dominance. But in their lapse Kaneki gained a futile control of his body before he turned to look at the extra presence.

"Touka," He whispered as he reached out a trembling hand, his _normal_ hand that was being constricted by deep black tendrils, "_Please_ **kill **me!"


	4. Chapter 4

**Blackwatch vs Ghouls (Short)**

It was silent on the helicopter as the Blackwatch soldiers checked their weapons and armor. Their arms deftly patted their ammo pouches and checked their gas masks as the night sky soared past their peripherals. The units commanding officer, Lieutenant Antonio Silva, called the men up as he entered the passenger cabin.

"Alright! We count at least fifteen Ghouls holed up in the hospital down the road from us. The civilians were evacuated before the Ghouls got in so we don't need to worry about damn civvies. But what we have to worry about are those Ghouls, we have Ukaku, Bikaku and mostly Koukaku. Keep spread out and make sure your fields of fires overlap. No in betweens you hear me?" Antonio commanded. The troop of thirty soldiers nodded and the helicopter shuddered as they steadied themselves above the hospital in question.

"Let's g-Incoming fire!" Just as the men prepared to jump down, Ukaku types began firing crystalline projectiles into their helicopter. The transport sputtered and two Blackwatch soldiers were clipped through their necks by the crystals. Antonio snarled, "Rockets!" Two rocket launchers were hefted and fired onto the roof. Designed specially with a portion of quinque. The explosives launched shrapnel all over the roof, forcing the Ukaku to cover themselves with their kagune and the soldiers quickly repelled onto the roof.

The first soldier snapped a weapon up, fired three bursts from his gun before he had to dodge from return fire. The twenty-eight man platoon spread out, dropping into crouches as they leveled the barrels of their weapons down range. Antonio chucked a grenade by the feet of an Ukaku and hummed in satisfaction when it blew up in a mess of gore. "Push!" Three soldiers eased forward, two keeping a steady stream of fire on an Ukaku as another aimed for its head.

The Ukaku blocked the bullets, twisted to try and retreat back indoors before he was slowly tumbling to the ground from a well placed bullet to his brain. The others checked the area, made reports of all clear, before they took positions near the entrance to the rooftop.

"Mendoza, Dowley, take a rope and repel down to ground floor. While we work down, you guys work up." Mendoza made a crisp nod and together with Dowley the both of them wrapped their ropes around a ventilation system and hopped off the roof with precision that would put most special forces to shame.

Mendoza tucked into a roll and sprung up with his M4A1 Carbine poised and ready to unload into any non-human son-of-a-bitch. He scanned the hospitals main entrance, satisfied that he wouldn't be expunging ammunition, and called Dowley to his side. "I go right, you go left?" Mendoza asked. Dowley was a Lance Corporal while Mendoza was just a PFC. Both of them were noncoms but Dowley had the higher rank.

"Sounds good, meet up at the stairs but don't stray too far." Mendoza nodded and they bumped fists before entering the hallway. The room was dark, the hanging luminescent lights having either been smashed in or out of power. Mendoza had his back hunched, his head up and alert and his strides close and careful. He had no intention of dying today, in fact he had no intention of dying whenever, if he could help it. Mendoza swung his weapon over the counter but found nothing.

Then he heard the audible click of a gun going off. He didn't blink in surprise, show any outward sign of distress- instead he calmly dropped to a knee as a volley of rounds went over his head. "Contact right!" Mendoza yelled before he squeezed his trigger. While the Ghoul showed a considerable lack of trigger discipline, Mendoza had no such problems and fired in sustained burst into the Ghouls knee. Blowing cartilage and bone apart as the explosive rounds tore through flesh. Mendoza then rolled out of the way as a tentacle as sharp as a blade swung by trying to cut him in half.

"Contact left!" Dowley yelled and Mendoza exchanged clips faster than the blink of an eye before he popped out of cover and acquired the new targets. One of them had a tail going down his leg while the other was another Koukaku type. The Bikaku would be a problem but as far as Mendoza was concerned the Koukaku was the one that had the highest chance of bisecting him. So he twisted his aim and fired a shot towards the bladed Ghoul. It hissed before it brought its shield up to block, Mendoza grimaced before pulling out a grenade.

"Frag out!" He warned before tossing the explosive. Dowley cried out in alarm as the explosions rumbled the hospital floor, sending the Ghouls flying each random direction. Mendoza twisted his sigh back to his right, noticed how the Ghoul he had shot both legs off was still alive- he sent one bullet through his head and emptied the rest into his back. It sputtered before dying.

Dowley lost his M4A1 to the Koukaku but he pulled out two pistols from his sides and aimed them down range. The Bikaku wasn't able to dodge due to the boxed in environment of a hospital's lobby but the Koukaku had his shields as a defense. The Bikaku took three hits to his chest, shuddered, and rolled into the cover of a hospital bed.

Sounds of explosions and gunfire were heard from the top floor and Mendoza realised that the main squad had already met resistance. He grimaced and raised his weapon to help his teammate before Silva reached them. Mendoza slid his arm against the mahogany wood of the desk and rested the barrel against the crook of his arm.

Dowley was firing wildly down the corridor at a wildly zigzagging Koukaku type. Each show Dowley made he would likewise take a step back but the difference in speed became abundantly clear. The Koukaku forced itself forward, its kagune wrapped around its arm, before it neatly cut off both of Dowleys legs. The noncom screamed but in testament to his training he didn't let up on his fire and scored three hits. The Koukaku snarled before gruesomely vivisecting him from the left shoulder blade to his right hip.

Mendoza bit back a yell, trained his weapon the exposed Ghoul and shot one bullet straight through its head. The thing squawked onced before falling to the ground dead. The Bikaku growled something nasty beneath its breath- in japanese- and tossed the hospital bed down range at Mendoza.

The soldier dropped onto his back, the hospital desk blocking his view on his target, and quickly aimed his weapon in preparation for an assault. He got back up to his feet and tsked when he spotted nothing.

"Silva's gonna be pissed." He muttered. He carefully stepped over the dead body of his friend and grabbed kagune of the Koukaku. He grinned before unsheathing a specially made knife and cleanly slicing it off. He did the same for the other Ghoul. He stowed them away before going up stairs. His rifle swung up and the first thing he saw was a dead Ghoul, an Ukaku, and judging by the huge hole in his chest, the explosion must have come from trying to kill him.

After he passed the body he spotted a dead Blackwatch soldier. This one didn't look like he died and most likely he had been dragged from his death point to hear to be fed upon. Mendoza didn't really feel anything- he had seen Manhattan- but he said a short eulogy for his fallen comrade before moving on to the next room.

There he caught the tail end of a one-way conversation between Silva and the rest of the remaining platoon- now just barely over fifteen. Still a better number than the CCG would have had, Mendoza thought.

He eased on his grip and reported in. "We came into contact with Ghouls, Sir. Two Koukakus and a Bikaku. The Bikaku got away."

"Anything else?" Silva asked as he fastened a gag over the captured Ghouls mouth.

"Dowley's dead, Sir"

"Something important Private!" Silva growled. Mendoza shook his head no and Silva made a long sigh.

"Fine. Saddle the kagunes and living Ghouls up. With Mercer jumping around from Brazil, Michigan and New Zealand Blackwatch doesn't want any more troops outside the base." Mendoza snapped a crisp salute before helping the rest of the men drag the Ghouls away. One gasped and looked at Mendoza pleadingly as he was hogtied.

"Please..." It wheezed but Mendoza didn't care and slammed his boot down on the Ghouls face. It wasn't like the Ghoul would extend the same courtesies to its victims anyhow.

"I'm glad we're out here facing these babies instead of Mercer. Could you imagine fighting a freak like him?" One of the Blackwatch soldiers mumbled. And Mendoza suddenly felt a chill run down his spine.


End file.
